People v. Thomas CA2/8

Filed 3/28/24 P. v. Thomas CA2/8 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS

California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION EIGHT

THE PEOPLE, B326905

Plaintiff and Respondent, Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. VA061057 v.

WILLIAM ARTHUR THOMAS,

Defendant and Appellant.

APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, William C. Ryan, Judge. Affirmed. Richard L. Fitzer, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant. Rob Bonta, Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Susan Sullivan Pithey, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Roberta L. Davis and Gabriel Bradley, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent. ____________________

William Arthur Thomas appeals the order denying his petition for resentencing under the Three Strikes Reform Act of 2012 (the Act), also known as Proposition 36. (See Pen. Code, § 1170.126; People v. Perez (2018) 4 Cal.5th 1055, 1059 (Perez).) We affirm. Substantial evidence supports the trial court’s ruling Thomas was armed with a deadly weapon during the commission of the underlying crime. Undesignated statutory citations are to the Penal Code. I We provide a brief overview of the extended proceedings leading up to, and relevant to, this ruling. Instead of repeating the facts from our earlier decision affirming Thomas’s convictions, we incorporate them here. (See People v. Thomas (May 6, 2002, B148325) 2002 WL 853848.) As noted in that decision, a jury convicted Thomas of kidnapping a child under 14 (§ 208, subd. (b)), indecent exposure (§ 314(1)), and evading an officer with willful disregard for safety (Vehicle Code, § 2800.2, subd. (a).) The jury also found Thomas had 20 prior robbery convictions. In 2001, the trial court sentenced Thomas under the Three Strikes Law to consecutive terms of 25 years to life in prison on the kidnapping and evasion counts, and to 180 days in county jail for the indecent exposure count. The court added 15 years under section 667, subdivision (a)(1), for prior serious felony convictions. We affirmed Thomas’s convictions in 2002. Twelve years later, Thomas filed his resentencing petition under the Act. Only the evasion count is the subject of Thomas’s petition and this appeal. The Act gives certain inmates serving a Three Strikes term the potential for resentencing, provided the statutory eligibility